Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Base 62

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was redirect to List of numeral systems. Claims of notability have been raised but no reliable sources could be discovered asserting the claim. (non-admin closure) Winged Blades^Godric 05:32, 26 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Base 62

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Unsourced original research, does not seem to exist outside of some trivial programming exercises. There is an ASCII based encoding system, Base64, a widely used, standard system. This seems to be created by someone who is unaware of Base64, as they’ve just come up with a much worse alternative. JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 06:33, 2 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Redirect to List of numeral systems, like some other non-notable bases (e.g. base 18). Technically, this was created by me in 2011 as a redirect, and then converted into a non-notable article recently. Double sharp (talk) 06:48, 2 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

redirect makes sense. I did consider just redirecting it myself, but thought it better to have a formal notice that it was not notable, as a version of it had been deleted once before according to the edit summary on recreation.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 07:07, 2 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Computing-related deletion discussions. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 08:22, 2 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Keep Apart from noting the existence of ASCII subset-using Base64, every other statement in the nomination is wrong. Base62 is obscure, but it is real and is used (it's commonly used in URL shortening, where Base64 can't easily be). If we're not having Base62, are the other "shortened 64s" such as Base58 also going to be deleted? Andy Dingley (talk) 09:30, 2 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]
- Are there any sources on that? The ones you’ve added are a start, but one is a blog post, not a reliable source, the other an undocumented web tool which is not really a suitable reference or link. I could turn up nothing better searching. Discussions and code snippets in blog posts, forum posts and code repositories, but nothing approaching a reliable source.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 09:59, 2 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Mathematics-related deletion discussions. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 14:15, 2 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. [1] supports the claim of notability as being more URL-safe than base64. DMacks (talk) 20:22, 2 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Again not a reliable source, just a small code snippet. It should not be hard, if it’s notable, to find good reliable sources for this. It’s a programming technique used with URLs, so sources are probably available online.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 23:06, 2 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I'm citing not the code snippet, but the documentation that asserts the value of the idea that the code implements. DMacks (talk) 20:59, 3 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

But it’s not a reliable secondary source. Anyone can write a few lines of code, post it online and then assert its usefulness – I’ve done so myself more than once. Notability requires much more than that.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 00:17, 4 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. This article is a translation of a German page for Base62 . I'm not entirely sure if this fits to the definition of a 'reliable source' but it appears a non-trivial number of people find base62 useful (revealed by Google search):

https://stackoverflow.com/search?tab=votes&q=base62
https://github.com/greenelab/deep-review/pull/305
https://www.codeproject.com/Articles/1076295/Base-Encode
(And many more)
Also, here is a research article to provide some 'notability': http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/spe.408/abstract

BrogrammerOne (talk) 17:14, 4 June 2017— Note to closing admin: BrogrammerOne (talk • contribs) is the creator of the page that is the subject of this XfD.

So WTF does that affect their comments here? Also why did the nominator not notify the creator of an article which they're AfDing?

If you have any substantial accusation to make regarding this editor, the place to do that is at WP:ANI, not by sniping at an AfD. Andy Dingley (talk) 22:27, 5 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Yes the article creator should have been informed as a courtesy -- that's recommended but not obligated on our policy page. I always would, except in cases where the article creator was acting disruptively. Article creators used to be equally recommended to self-identify at Afd but I see someone removed it from the policy page! So I'm not even sure this template serves a purpose anymore. No snipe was intended, I assure you. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 14:00, 6 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I believe JohnBlackburne intended to inform the article creator; however, because I originally created this page as a redirect, and somebody else turned it into an article, he ended up informing me instead on my talk page. Double sharp (talk) 15:23, 7 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Delete or redirect. The only relevant notability guideline for this sort of content is WP:GNG. And a single uncited academic journal paper (Google scholar lists one citation, but it is by the same author) and a bunch of unreliable sources (I note for instance that the best of the lot, the Exim book, appears to be self-published) do not add up to the reliable, independent, nontrivial coverage required by WP:GNG. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:04, 7 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Onel5969 ^{TT me} 16:01, 9 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Redirect Base64 and Base58 are in common use, this isn't. Power~enwiki (talk) 21:51, 9 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Keep Base62 in my opinion definitely deserves a stand-alone entry. It is a widely used encoding wherever character set of [0-9a-zA-Z] is required or desired. That includes URL embedded GUID encoding and database primary keys. Base64 and Base64Url have problematic last two characters of their alphabet. Look to www.youtube.com or tinyurl.com for examples. Pzieminski (talk) 17:56, 16 June 2017 (UTC) — Pzieminski (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic. [reply]

YouTube doesn’t use it – they include underscores in the strings they use for movies and channels. They may also exclude some characters, as might tinyURL.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 18:20, 16 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, So Why 17:49, 18 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.